No one is more pleased by the president endorsing the idea of a military space force than Rep. Mike Rogers. WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee had planned weeks ago to hold a hearing on “space war-fighting readiness.” In a case of fortuitous timing, the day before the hearing President Trump thrust the topic into the spotlight. No one was more pleased by the president endorsing the idea of a military space force than Rep. Mike Rogers, who chairs the HASC strategic forces subcommittee and has relentlessly pursued the…

Air Force leaders dodge questions on Trump’s ‘Space Force’ More Top Air Force leaders sidestepped questions from Congress this morning about the creation of the “Space Force” suggested by President Donald Trump Tuesday. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson opened her testimony before the House Appropriations Committee today by touting the Air Force’s efforts in space, a top priority for the service in the fiscal year 2019 budget. In contrast, Trump suggested removing the space domain out of the Air Force and creating a separate Space Force. “My new national strategy…

GREENBELT, Md. — Despite uncertainty about who will lead the agency after the end of April, NASA’s current acting administrator says he expects little change in the agency’s activities in the near future. Robert Lightfoot, NASA associate administrator who has been serving as acting administrator since January 2017, announced March 12 his plans to retire from the agency at the end of April. His retirement comes as the nomination of a new administrator, Jim Bridenstine, remains stalled in the Senate. Speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium here…

America should create its own separate military space force, President Donald Trump mentioned in an offhand remark Tuesday that would change the course of U.S. space policy. But don’t expect Captain Kirk ordering phasers set on stun, Battlestar Galactica or ray guns blazing in orbit in the near future, space experts said. And some said a military space force may make it harder to keep Earth’s orbit a place of peace. Saying his national security strategy “recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,”…

For the first time since a Russian Soyuz rocket launched 73 satellites in July 2017, Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, is confirming a problem with the Fregat upper stage. “According to the telemetry, an anomaly was detected in one of the Fregat’s low-thrust engines,” Glavkosmos told the Russian internet newspaper, Gazeta.ru, according to a March 12 article. For months, satellite and insurance executives have tried to determine why a group of cubesats launched into the same orbit failed, while other spacecraft on the Soyuz flight worked.…

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump offered praise for the U.S. commercial space industry in comments March 8 that appeared to cement previous policy on the issue rather than create new policy. Near the end of a 20-minute session with the media during a Cabinet meeting, Trump discussed commercial spaceflight, prompted by the presence of models of several launch vehicles, including United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and SpaceX’s Falcon 9, on the table. The status of the National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, was one of the topics…

We are entering a renaissance era in human spaceflight. Just as the European masters brought forth a magical period of learning, discovery, invention, fine arts and music 500 years ago, with the advances in the science and technologies proliferating today, we expect a rejuvenation in human space activity in this dawn of the 21st century. The White House has moved swiftly to reinstate a newly constituted National Space Council and, in its first meeting Oct. 5, 2017, directed NASA to conduct a 45-day study with the express aim of returning astronauts…

Like past presidents, Trump is setting an ambitious space agenda that is not backed up with resources NASA’s topline budget will be flat for the foreseeable future — which means an effective decrease in real dollar funding for the agency. As a result, President Trump may see his Moon plans come crashing down to Earth. In mid-December last year, Trump formally announced his administration’s decision to return NASA to the Moon by signing Space Policy Directive 1, an amendment to the 2010 National Space Policy. Echoing Vice President Mike Pence’s…

TORONTO — Stymied by extended regulatory delays, Planet is planning to remove a ground station it built in Canada if it does not receive a government license for it by June. Speaking at the Canadian SmallSat Symposium here Feb. 13, Mike Safyan, senior director of launch and ground stations for the San Francisco-based company, said Planet was still waiting for the Global Affairs Canada (GAC) to decide on a remote sensing license the company needs to operate a ground station it has at Inuvik, Northwest Territories. Planet filed the application…

In January, reports leaked that the Trump administration wanted to cut off funding to the International Space Station after 2025, and this weekend, The Washington Post obtained a government document suggesting the station should be completely privatized by 2024. The agency’s fiscal year 2019 budget request is due to be released at noon Eastern time. Turning the ISS over to corporations sounds drastic, but it’s not really all that different from what experts expected, according to John Logsdon, a space policy expert at the George Washington University. He told Newsweek that the budget language…